So, a while ago, when the superlicious Sarah was visiting, we had a wee dinner party – on a school night, nogal. Ended up with the smokers in my room having a few cigs out the window. And, after more than a couple of glasses of wine, we weren´t being particularly quiet. Cue the guy from the flat next door poking his head out the window and asking, ever so politely, if we wouldn´t mind keeping it down a little, since he did have work tomorrow. So did we (well, some of us) but in his defence, it was the witching hour.

Cut to a few days later, I had an Amélie moment, and decided to sally forth in the spirit of making friends with the neighbour. So I stuck a note to his door. Can´t remember it verbatim. But it went something like this:

Dear 315

Please accept this sincere, if somewhat tardy, apology for our raucous behaviour on Wednesday night. Do you fancy going for a drink some time this week in recompense? You know where to find us…

Yours in contrition
318

(I considered including something along the lines of “we will never be so noisy again, at least not so late at night”, but didn´t want to make a promise I couldn´t keep.)

A couple of days after this, I received the following :

Thank you for the note.

I´m keen for a drink sometime. I´m not often home so give me a call/text on xxx xxx xxxx & we can arrange to meet.

– Name

So I gave it a few days and texted him. And he didn´t text back. After a week or so, I sent him another text, and he replied and said sorry he´d been busy, and he´d be in touch on the weekend. But he wasn´t…

Whatever: I am like *so* over it. But I don´t quite get it. I mean, this isn´t about him just not being that into me. I was merely extending the offer of a friendly drink. Admittedly, from what I recall, he was fairly cute. However, I´d like to state that in no way did this influence my actions 😉 What puzzles me, is that if he
didn´t want to engage with the noisy, kooky neighbour, why did he give me his number?!

So, the question I´m asking you, my dear readers, is am I weird for instigating the whole note-on-the-door spiel? How would you have responded to such a gesture? I await your comments in anticipation, since I will prolly never be privy to neighbour boy´s view on this matter.

Personally, I feel the fact that I´d rather be having a drink with the mysterious 315 right now than writing about him on my blog shows I´m more human than freak. Pity 315 never bothered to find this out for himself.

I´m clearly a little behind in making my resolutions for 2009, or at least declaring them on line. (Good luck with the job hunt, Bean!) Not that I´ve ever been that big on resolutions anyway.

Last time I made a New Year´s resolution I had any intention of keeping was in 2004: “I shall not be in Port Alfred next New Year.” (For the record, this was no reflection on the generous hospitality of Dogflower, rather a realisation that there were summer holiday options other than the Eastern Cape). And where was I on December 31, 2004? Port Alfred of course, and it was a good one!

But I digress. And I shall continue to do so… Looking over this blog, I see I have had a couple of previous posts concerning resolutions. In February I came up with a new semester resolution of endeavouring to update my blog with greater regularity. Well, I didn´t survive the semester in Liechtestein, nevermind the resolution!

In July I made a couple of half-year´s resolutions, to wit: get my driver´s licence and get a job. Regarding the former, I did at least get my learner´s licence, which was a huge step forward… And I did get a job, and then I got another one. So that´s one-and-a-half out of two: not a bad score!

Back to the point of this post. I did consider some resolutions for this year. But, unlike Bec, I am only giving up smoking when I grow up at 30 (not all that far away, yikes!), and I am not about to sacrifice my last few months of coughing pleasure just so I can turn the whole ordeal into a New Year´s resolution.

On yet another tanget, TDWCYL2009 is the bossiest book I have ever come across. I´ve already failed my Week 1 Goal to “Make a New Year Resolution that no one in history has ever made before”. Week 2´s aim “Open a Home Restaurant” has also passed me by – I have to use all my resolve just to cook a decent meal now and then instead of being enticed by cheap and tasty Indian takeaways. We´re already in Week 3 and it seems I must now “Subvert Consumer Society from Within”. I´ll keep you posted on that one!

Okay, I´ll stop blathering on now. I´ve decided on one resolution for 2009, and a simple one at that: to be happy. Or perhaps not that simple – thom e yorke once said something about how it´s easy to be depressed; much braver and more difficult to be happy (If anyone can find the original quote, please let me know!).

Which reminds me of something an Iranian friend said at my goodbye party in Liechtenstein: “Theresa, I think you´ve enjoyed your time here, but you have not been happy.” Puzzling over this apparent contradiction, I realised he was right. Being happy is both more, and less, than merely enjoying oneself. I´m pretty good at the latter, but have some work to do on the former…

For now though, I´m off to make myself a bite to eat before heading down for a pint or two at the local (yes, we do have those in Dubai!) with the Golden Sands gang.

A: I remember when I went to the US when I was really young… I visited Disneyland and ate a lot of flapjacks.
B: But you can´t say “flapjacks”.
C: Why not? Does “flapjack” have some secret gay meaning I don´t know about?
B: No, it´s just not our style. None of those Americanisms! We say “pancakes” here.
C: Well, actually, if we´re talking about pancakes in the US, we say “crêpes”.

1. “My suitcase is very heavy, and I am very short. Please would you help me lift it onto this impossibly high luggage rack?”

2. “I like your band, and you are quite cute. Can I buy you a drink?”

3. “Even though I don’t speak German, I am actually very cool, and we should be friends.”

You can get round the first situation with gesturing, and saying “danke”.

As for the second, body language is universal, but I thought better of my proposition when said singer had a girl draped over him. Also, he was very much younger than I had at first supposed. Check out Rääs, Liechtenstein’s answer to Tristan Waterkeyn.